Following this morning’s shock by-election result, gloom and despair are gripping much of the Conservative party in the South of England. But one ex-Tory Cabinet minister was in brighter spirits today, with former Attorney General Dominic Grieve popping up on BBC News to explain why his onetime colleague turned Brexit nemesis Boris Johnson is to blame for the defeat in true blue Buckinghamshire.
Grieve, who lost the Tory whip on Johnson’s orders in September 2019 after voting with opposition MPs on a three line whip, has repaid the snub by frequent jibes at the Prime Minister, such as labelling him a ‘vacuum of integrity.’
This morning was no different with Johnson being viewed by the ‘sophisticated’ Chesham and Amersham electorate as a ‘charlatan’ touting a ‘fraudulent prospectus.’ Moreover while ‘some’ sections of the electorate warm to Johnson’s optimism, the ‘sophisticated’ voters here ‘perhaps take life a little bit more seriously’ and judged him accordingly:
I think that the result in Chesham and Amersham was predictable and indeed all the information I was picking up from friends who live there in the last three weeks and indeed in my old constituency suggested to me that this was going to be the outcome.
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